Christianity Oasis Forum

[cimi]

THURSDAY MARCH 10


STRANGERS AND FOREIGNERS

READ:
HEBREWS 11:10
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He was looking
forward to the city
with foundations,
whose architect
and builder is God.
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I parked my bicycle, fingering my map of Cambridge for reasurance. Directions not being my strength, I knew i could easily get lost in this maze of roads bursting with historic buildings.

Life should have felt idyllic, for I had just married my Englishman and moved to the UK. But I felt adrift. When I kept my mouth closed I blended in, but when I spoke I immediately felt branded as an American toursist. I didn’t yet know what my role was, and I quickly realized that blending two stubborn people into one shared life was harder than I had anticipated.

I related to Abraham, who left all that he knew as he obeyed the Lord’s call to live as a foreigner and stranger in a new land (GEN. 12:1). He pressed through the cultural challenges while keeping
faith in God, and 2,000 years later the writer to the Hebrews named him a hero (11:9). Like the other men and women listed in this chapter, Abraham lived by faith, longing for things promised, hoping and waiting for his heavenly home.

Perhaps you’ve always lived in the same town, but as Christ-followers we’re all foreigners and strangers on this earth. By faith we press forward, knowing that God will lead and guide us, and by faith we believe He will never leave nor abandon us. By faith we long for hom. __Anne Boucher Pye

**Father God, I want to live by faith, believing Your promises
and knowing that You welcome me into Your kingdom.
Enlarge my faith, I pray.
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God calls us to live by faith, believing that He will fulfill His promises.

*******************Today’s Bible Reading Hebrews 11:8-16******************************
8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would
later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even
though he did not know where he was going 9 By faith
he made his home in the promised land like a stranger
in foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob,
who were heirs with him of the same promse. 10 For he was
looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect
and builder is God. 11 And by faith even Sarah, who was past
childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she
considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12 And so
from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants
as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the
sand on the seashore.

13 All these people were still living by faith when they died.
They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them
and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they
were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who ay
such things show that they are ooking for a country of their
own 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left,
they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they
wee longing for a better country__a heavenly one. Therefore
God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared
a city for them.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>INSIGHT<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Hebrews 11 has been referred to as the “Hall
of Faith.” It’s contents celebrate the deep and impressive faith
of our spiritual ancesors. Their faith, demonstrated through
their actions, is put on display by the writer of Hebrews for the
encouragement of those who follow in their spirtua footsteps.
The examples of those who have preceded us__those who lived
as “foreigners and strangers on earth” (v.13__help us to fix our
eyes on Jesus (12:2). This focus allows us to press on toward a
“country of 9our0 own” (11:14. __J.R. Hudberg